


Workplace Etiquette

by YumeArashi



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Asexuality, Booty Calls, Gen, Humor, bad seduction techniques, possibly sexist language, unintentional eavesdropping, verbal aspersions, wounded male egos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:22:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YumeArashi/pseuds/YumeArashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt had concluded long ago that drastic measures would be necessary to get Hermann's attention.  But what happens when he takes them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Workplace Etiquette

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the concept (and many of the lines) goes to my sister Kouri Arashi. Written for Asexuality Awareness Week 2013

Newton Geiszler glanced around the lab as the clock ticked over to two AM.  As Tendo had promised, the little red power lights on the cameras blinked off, and he grinned.  He sauntered over to the other only person in the lab at that hour, one extremely prickly mathematician. 

"Heyyyyyyy, Hermann," Newt sing-songed as he came up behind him, loosening his tie and toeing off shoes and socks.

"Dr. Gottlieb to you," the other man replied automatically, without turning his head.  "Gottlieb is also acceptable, if you must.  And yes, I will continue to repeat that until it finally percolates through that convoluted mess you call a mind."

"You're no fun," Newt laughed, undoing the buttons of his shirt.

"A fact for which I am daily grateful, as it saves me from any number of frivolous wastes of my time.  Those caused by you not included, sadly."

"Aww, you know you love it when I drag you away from your work.  You should be grateful, really," Newt told him as he shrugged out of his shirt and pulled off his belt.

"Is that so?"  The question was bone dry.  "And how, pray tell, does your delaying my work merit gratitude?  Do explain it, I am simply awash with anticipation."

"Every time I get you out of the lab it delays your inevitable succumbing to chalk dust inhalation, now had you thought of that?" New smirked as he shucked off his pants and underwear.  "Besides, you'd miss out on all this," he announced, coming around the desk and draping himself over it in a manner intended to be seductive.

Gottlieb glanced up, wrinkled his nose, and demanded, "Do you mind?  Some of us are trying to work here."

"Man, you sure know how to wound a guy's ego," Newt pouted.

"May I remind you that you were the one who decided to disrobe and misplace your unclad self upon my desk uninvited?"

(Out in the hallway, a set of knuckles stopped a bare inch shy of rapping on the half-open lab door.  Raleigh Beckett did an abrupt about-face and hastily vacated the area.  The Marshall's question could wait until morning.)

"It's a time honored seduction technique!" Newt protested,  "C'mon, nothing?  Not even a little attraction going on there?"

"Attraction to what?" Gottlieb snorted gracelessly.  "Your lingering stench of Kaiju innards?  Your incessantly prattling voice?  Your garish tattoos?"

"….Wow, you _really_ know how to wound a guy's ego."

"I'm sure it will recover easily enough.  And now, a little decorum if you please."

Newt sighed and hopped off the desk, tugging up his pants as the mathematician muttered darkly about needing disinfectant.  "So are you just not into guys?  Because I know this seriously stacked chick on Eureka's crew who thinks smart is the new sexy.  You're on her top ten list," he grinned, "Right behind me, actually."

"Then why don’t you go have sex with her and leave me alone?" Gottlieb snapped.

Newt leaned over the desk, smirking.  "She's not the only one who finds a certain nerdy math genius attractive."

Gottlieb gave him a long-suffering look.  "Your efforts are entirely wasted.  I have no interest in you, or in your 'stacked chick' – as you so insultingly label her – or anyone else for that matter."

Newt blinked.  "Oh, you're ace?  Why didn't you just say so?"

"I probably don't even want to know what that means," Gottlieb muttered.

"Ace – asexual.  I had wondered, you kind of give off that 'sex is icky' vibe, but I thought maybe you were just shy about your leg," Newt explained as he put his shirt and shoes back on, carelessly stuffing the socks and tie in a pocket.

Gottlieb glared.  "I am not a paramecium, I do not reproduce via mitosis, whatever you may think.  And never you mind about my leg, it and what I think of it are no business of yours."

"Hey, no offense meant, man," Newt's expression softened and he ruffled his companion's hair, much to the latter's annoyance.  "Anyhow, I don’t mean asexual in the biology definition, I mean it in terms of your sexual orientation.  As in, rather than being attracted to girls, guys, or both, you aren't attracted to anyone."

"What _will_ they think of next?" Gottlieb rolled his eyes.

"Oh, like you care what definition I use, so long as it keeps my skinny naked ass off your desk."

"There is that," he sniffed.

"Won't happen again," New grinned.  "Don't forget to go to bed at some point, you're cranky as hell when you're working 'till dawn."

Already reabsorbed in his numbers, Gottlieb waved a vague acknowledgment.

Whistling, Newt sauntered off to Tendo's quarters.  He'd be off shift by now, and he was always up for a little late-night booty call.  Besides, Newt owed him ten bucks.


End file.
